Lloyd’s Banking Group facing lawsuit over ‘discriminatory’ pensions

The bank has had a legal challenge brought against it over a pension scheme deemed unfair to women

BY
Lucy Hook 10 Aug 2016

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Lloyd’s Banking Group is facing a legal challenge from The Lloyd’s Trade Union (LTU) over a pension system that is ‘discriminatory between men and women’.

Legal advisers for the LTU, which has over 30,000 members and was derecognised by the bank last year, launched the action over the use of Guaranteed Minimum Pensions (GMPs), The Guardian reported.

The LTU said that GMPs, where firms provide an equivalent pension to those wanting to top up their retirement savings, are “accepted by almost everyone [as] by their nature discriminatory between men and women”.

This is because men and women accrue benefits at different rates and are entitled to their pensions at different ages – 65 for men and 60 for women – according to The Guardian.

Mark Brown, the LTU’s General Secretary, said: “GMPs is one of the last bastions of pension discrimination and the issue needs to be resolved now.

“Up to five million women, including up to 148,000 in Lloyds Banking Group, have either got, or are going to get, smaller pension increases than men and that is simply unacceptable.”

The issue could be worth up to £2,000 per female member of staff and £300million in total, Economia reported.

The legal challenge, brought on behalf of three women, could lead to class action from 28,000 female members of the defined benefit pension schemes, and this number could could rise to 148,000 individuals, based on estimates of active scheme members, those who have deferred entitlements and existing pensioners, The Guardian reported.